Friday Papers: BP agrees $4.5bn Gulf spill settlement

Top stories

The Daily Telegraph: BP has pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the deaths of 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico disaster and will pay $4.5 billion in a record settlement with US authorities.

The Guardian: The high-profile £50 billion merger between Xstrata and Glencore took another last-minute twist on Thursday after the surprise decision by Qatar Holding, an influential shareholder, not to back controversial multi-million pound pay packages for key staff.

The Guardian: The £66 billion of taxpayer funds used to buy shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group at the height of the financial crisis may never be recovered, a powerful group of MPs warned on Friday.

The Independent: The eurozone has double-dipped back into its second recession in three years, official figures confirmed yesterday; output across the 17-member bloc fell by 0.1% over the third quarter of 2012, following a 0.2% decline in the second quarter, according to Eurostat.

Business and economics

The Daily Telegraph: Triumph Motorcycles Group's sales and profits have hit the skids as the eurozone crisis impacted its markets.

The Daily Telegraph: JP Morgan has been banned from trading electricity in the US after a regulator accused the bank of making "egregious" misrepresentations during an investigation into alleged market manipulation.

Financial Times: Revenues this year from investment banks’ foreign exchange divisions are down 23%, falling from $7.4 billion in the first three quarters of 2011 to $5.7 billion in the same period this year, show figures from Coalition, an independent investment banking and financial services analyst.

The Daily Telegraph: The chief executive of Dixons Retail, Sebastian James, has backed warnings that UK retailers are at risk of collapse if the Government does not act to force foreign companies to pay their share of tax.

The Guardian: Britain stands to lose around €1 billion a year in its contentious EU budget rebate under the latest proposals being circulated.

Daily Mail: E.ON is planning to hike gas and electricity bills by 11% for five million customers in January, reports claim, but the supplier says it has not made a decision yet.

The Daily Telegraph: Russian mobile phone company MegaFon is pressing ahead with its multi-billion dollar flotation after getting the green light from British regulators to list in London.

The Guardian: Low-paid cabin crew hired by British Airways after the bitter industrial dispute of 2010 are themselves now to push for improved conditions through collective bargaining after joining Unite.

Daily Mail: British Gas owner Centrica has announced it is on course to make a profit of £1.4 billion this year - a day before it slaps customers with an inflation-busting 6% hike in energy bills.

The Independent: Co-op Energy, which has 60,000 customers nationwide, will cut its electricity price by 2% next month, making its average annual dual-fuel bill £178 cheaper than those of its rivals.

Financial Times: McDonald’s said on Thursday that Jan Fields, head of the company’s US business, would leave at the end of the month.

The Daily Telegraph: Canadian regulators have publicly refuted a claim by the Royal Bank of Scotland that it is "co-operating fully" with authorities around the world in the on-going Libor probe.

The Guardian: Three, the mobile phone network owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, has added 1.04 million customers in the UK in a year.

The Independent: EADS has launched an external, group-wide investigation into its anti-corruption practices as the European aerospace company admitted for the first time that it had failed to react quickly enough to a whistleblower's claim that its UK unit paid bribes to secure contracts in Saudi Arabia.

The Daily Telegraph: Santander is launching a £500 million funding for lending package for small and medium-sized businesses in an attempt to improve their cash flow.

The Guardian: New EU taxes on Chinese crockery and cookware are at odds with the principles of free trade and will lead to pointless price rises for hard-pressed customers, said the British Retail Consortium.

The Independent: Esure, the insurer whose adverts featured Michael Winner, has shuffled its board ahead of an expected stock market flotation next year.

Financial Times: The London Metal Exchange has announced a long-awaited change to its rules that will force companies such as Goldman Sachs and Glencore to increase the rate at which they deliver metal out of their warehouses.

Daily Express: Fitness First, the gym chain striving to get its finances in better shape after being saved from administration over the summer, yesterday revealed the pain of hefty annual losses.

Financial Times: The Algebris CoCo Fund, which manages $900 million, is up 45% for 2012, according to an investor – more than 10 times the average hedge fund.

The Daily Telegraph: Centrica under fire for expected 6pc profit rise from British Gas household energy customers who face prices rises on Friday.

The Daily Telegraph: Asda, the UK's second largest supermarket group, says like-for-like sales rose 0.3pc in the third quarter of the year.

Financial Times: Italy’s next government should cut public expenditure to make room for tax reductions rather than imposing additional austerity on citizens, says Vittorio Grilli, finance minister.

Financial Times: Dell’s consumer business contracted by almost a quarter as it lost market share to Asian PC makers and people bought smartphones and tablets in preference to its laptops.

The Daily Telegraph: Financial services group Card Protection Plan has been fined a record £10.5 million and could have to pay a total of £33.4 million for mis-selling of credit card insurance.

Financial Times: ABB, the Swiss engineering conglomerate, has appointed Eric Elzvik, an internal candidate, as chief financial officer, replacing Michel Demaré, who is leaving next year to become chairman of Syngenta.

Financial Times: France Telecom has opened the door for a flotation next year of EE, the UK’s largest mobile phone group by customer numbers that it owns with Deutsche Telekom.

Financial Times: The French government will ban high-frequency trading, agricultural commodities derivatives trading and other “highly speculative” activities but will allow banks to keep intact most market-making activities in its forthcoming banking reform law.

Share tips, comment and bids

Financial Times: Reckitt Benckiser has trumped Bayer’s $1.2 billion deal to buy Schiff Nutrition International, with a cash offer that sets up a potential bidding war between the UK and German groups.

The Daily Telegraph: Mining giant Xstrata gave the nod to a rights issue by Lonmin, the platinum miner thrown into crisis by South Africa's strikes, as fellow investors refused to scupper the rescue plan.

The Independent: Pearson would not rule out a sale of the Financial Times, according to the publishing group's chief financial officer Robin Freestone.

The Independent: Lacoste has been bought by the Swiss family-held group Maus Frères in a deal which valued the French sportswear and fashion maker at €1 billion; the deal follows a Lacoste family feud over management of the firm.

The Daily Telegraph: Land Securities is in advanced talks to take a majority stake in X-Leisure, owners of the Xscape indoor ski slopes and Brighton Marina, for around £100 million.

The Daily Telegraph (Comment): The eurozone has relapsed into double-dip recession as the austerity shock in the Mediterranean region spreads to the core countries of the north.

The Daily Telegraph (Comment): John Lewis Partnership has now been joined by Dixons Retail in opposing a UK tax system revealed to be unfit for purpose.

Daily Mail (City Focus): Britain's ageing workforce has turned the economy into a ‘slow motion car crash’, John Cridland, director- general of the Confederation of British Industry, has warned.

The Independent (Comment): Thanks to the Qataris, Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg's protracted quest to win control of Xstrata is now all but over.

Financial Times (Lombard): While CPP is in the unusual position of being in demand on one side and being damned on another, the high street banks are in their familiar position: in the dock -- 3i chief executive Simon Borrows is making good progress in turning the listed private equity group into a company that might eventually look plausible.

Financial Times (Lex): Target/Walmart – as the US economy suddenly looks like the best of a bad lot globally, investors may warm to Target’s cosy domesticity.

Financial Times (Lex): Megafon – few companies start out with such a controversial controlling shareholder – namely oligarch and Arsenal football club stakeholder Alisher Usmanov.

Financial Times (Lex): Glencore/Xstrata – Qatar Holding has backed the merger, but is ducking a vote on retention incentives. Should others follow its lead?

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